Dear
Government Agency,
My wife
and I are currently waiting to be matched with our adopted children from
Ethiopia, and we needed you to know a few things. I started to write this
letter in anger. This very letter almost
included the phrase “pissed off” (well, technically, now it does, but you understand). I would’ve used the words “ashamed”,
“ridiculous”, “inept”, and “livid”. I
will not do so.
I
could’ve made this a sarcastic piece, kind of like those open letters to people
who made your burrito wrong or to Wal-Mart executives who don’t treat their
employees properly. Honestly, I enjoy
and appreciate sarcasm immensely, and would’ve reveled in the bile of each jab
as I bled you with a million tiny cuts.
After all, Americans are good at that now, right? We savor each creeping word, each phrase turned
just so, in order to ridicule and entertain, all in one glorious swipe of the
pen. As much as it pains me, I’ll pass
on that letter as well.
Let me
make one more clarification before I write the actual body of my letter. When I
say “Government Agency”, I mean you:
-
United
States State Department, which would issue our adopted children’s citizenship,
granting them safe passage into our country.
-
USCIS,
which would grant passports, allowing our family’s ability to leave our
country, spend time in Ethiopia, and grant our newly expanded family’s ability
to enter the U.S. again.
-
Ethiopian
Ministry of Women’s, Children and Youth Affairs, which would grant release of
our adopted children from their current technically legal families, officially
declaring them orphans, and allowing them to become eligible for adoption.
-
UNICEF,
which has advised Ethiopia and various other countries in order to strengthen
their current adoption procedures, with the intention of providing the best
care for the children involved.
-
Hague
Convention, which provides guidelines and protections for all parties involved
in the inter-country adoption process, from birth parents to adoptive parents,
to (and most importantly) the orphans awaiting families.
-
Any
other federal, state, or county agency whose systems and regulations are set up
to support and promote orphans, which, in fact, like the previously mentioned
agencies, ultimately do almost the exact opposite thing.
This is
my message to you.
You are
instruments of God. Seriously, you are. Romans 13:1 tells me so.
“For there is no
authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God”
Please
don’t forget that. You have all worked
together in thousands of instances to make inter-country or domestic adoption a
reality for families all over this country.
I know you innately know this, because you use such appropriate language
in your descriptions of your work. You use words and phrases such as the
following on your websites.
“advocates”
“justice”
“welfare”
“equality”
“protection”
“supportive
environment”…all of these for “the children”.
That is
an awesome task, and in Ethiopia (at least)…and you’re blowing it. Between 1999 and 2010, inter-country
adoptions from Ethiopia grew at an amazing rate. The numbers rose from literally 42 to 2,511
in that time. This is the type growth
that shows a response to the heightened need from forever families for the
estimated 4.6 million orphans in this country.
Since
2010, however, this number not just creeped down, but plummeted, summing 993
adoptions in 2013. I know folks who
aren’t involved in adoptions are curious as to why. You would probably answer that you want more
families in Ethiopia to be able to keep their children, so you provide
subsidies to them. You might even answer
that corruption has tainted the process, making for longer lead times to
confirm the orphan status of these children.
You might even have enough pretense to say that it’s better for a child
to grow up in his or her country of origin, regardless of whether he or she has
a family or not.
My
answer would be that you’ve confused your divine calling with political
laziness, based on a secular worldview.
My only evidence needed is shown in the amazing documentary
“Stuck”. You can purchase your own indictment,
and even watch a trailer at http://buy.stuckdocumentary.com.
I would
encourage you and anyone else to watch this spectacle of shame and compare them
to how well we support adoption as a whole in this country, because in a sense
we do; it’s just focused on an ironic skew. Read these numbers and see how you
feel about those ASPCA commercials and benefit galas, which successfully place
upwards of 35% (2.7 million out of 7.6 million, average, annually) of all
orphaned animals in the U.S. each year.
All the while, in Ethiopia, 0.02% of orphaned children were adopted to
U.S. families in the year 2013.
Yes,
while failing to heed your divine calling to be an instrument of God’s grace,
you have (for many) become instruments of God’s wrath against this fallen
world. You have become evidence that
Romans 1:18-23 is true.
“For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their
unrighteousness suppress the truth. For
what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his
eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the
creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not
honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their
thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and
exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images….”
You don’t
recognize God in your work, and your image of idolatry has become political
idealism. Here are a few examples from “Stuck”
and our family’s own experience.
“Should this process be governed through checks and
balances?” Yes, of course.
“Should they go through them 3 times?” No.
“Should children be bought on the black market? “
Absolutely not.
“Should it
take legal action and over 3 years to make an inter-country adoption possible?” What do you think?
“Should you protect children from predatory behavior of
evil people?” Without question.
“Should
families with multiple background checks have to get fingerprinted every 15
months to confirm their identity?”
Probably not.
“Should children be matched with the right forever
families?” Yes.
“Should these children be left in
orphanages until they age out at 16, only to be put out onto the streets?” I’ll let you make that call.
Again,
I would remind you or your unique and beautiful potential. Consider these words from the Bible.
“But when the
fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under
the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption
as sons” – Galatians 4:4-5
“…even
as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be
holy and blameless before him. In love,
he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according
to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace….” – Ephesians
1:5
“For
you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear but you have
received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba!
Father!”” – Romans 8:15
Hence,
when you do your job properly, and as it was intended (because adoption is God’s
idea, afterall) to be done, you become a key part of possibly the most potent
display and image of the gospel we can see in this world of ours. Adoption is the
gospel, and this is the real beauty in it.
It’s not about bringing a poor kid into our middle class lives. It’s not about condescending to a lower
class, and thus, showing how “generous” we are.
It’s not about just having another child, because we could’ve conceived
and born multiple children in the time we’ve waited.
It is
about displaying the glory and the grace of God, through obedience to His call.
Honestly,
this is all we are trying to do. It is a
simple thing, but it is a huge thing.
All we ask is that you focus on the truth behind your vocation. Even if you don’t care about Jesus, could you
at least re-focus on your stated intent – to help children? I’m starting to feel guilty while pointing to
the Church and asking “where are you?” when there are 4.6 million orphans in
Ethiopia alone. Sometimes, I get the
feeling that even if everyone in the Church would step up, you’d not allow the
dream to happen.
My last
reminder of your place is this. Even if
you ignore this need, all my words, and all the pleading of the adoption
community, rest assured that you are STILL instruments of God. This may sound odd, but you are instruments
of God in that you are (whether you like it or not) producing suffering.
Your
lack of action produces suffering for adoption agencies which are forced pull
out of countries, due to lack of funds.
This produces suffering for the local citizens, who must endure hundreds
of thousands of orphans (mostly uneducated and unskilled) who age out of
orphanages each year, thus weighing on the social system of said country. This produces suffering for that agency’s
employees, as they (potentially) lose jobs.
This produces suffering for the families who await a referral, as they
wait and wait and wait. Lastly, this
produces suffering for the ones who deserve it the least. The children, for whom you advocate, whose only hope is a forever
family, sit in the orphanages.
And
they sit.
And
they sit.
And
they sit.
What
does God do with suffering of His people (regardless of nationality)?
“It is for discipline that you have
to endure. God is treating you as
sons. For what son is there whom his
father does not discipline…. For the moment, all discipline seems painful
rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness
to those who have been trained by it” – Hebrews 12:7 and 11
“Not only that, but
we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and
endurance produces character and character produces hope, and hope does not put
us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the
Holy Spirit who has been given to us” – Romans 5:3-5
I know
and understand that this is not persecution of me or anyone else you want to
help, for the authors were writing (at least in part) about religious
persecution in these passages, but when
you takes your eyes off of your goal (and off of God), your lack of progress
causes everyone involved pain, and yes, suffering, regardless of the degree.
Yes,
your failure to do your job ultimately produces hope. It is produced in, around, and within the
adoption community. Sadly, this is often
the only thing we have left to cling to.
In our worst of times, we come close to despair, hoping in doubt,
that this will ever happen. In our best
of times, we cling in faith, hoping in expectation of what God can and
will do despite this fallen world.
I leave
you with this. You are instruments of
God. Will you be instruments that
reproduce the image and message of the gospel?
Will you be instruments that display God’s righteous wrath against this
fallen world? Will you be instruments
that produce hope through suffering?
Only
God knows.
Our
hope is in Him, and that is hope enough.
Sincerely,
The
Adoption Community
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